Okay – maybe a little more than 200 years, still…
This has nothing to do with modern geek tech, but it’s still really incredible. I picked this up from Digg – Archaeologists get ancient audio from grooves on Pompeii pottery.
I wish I could understand the french in the video to catch the full import.
I’m guessing the very act of spiraling the grooves into that pot had enough texture from the vibrations in the air that we could pick it up. It’s really amazing listening to that snippet of audio – to think, that could be – I’ll even say probably is! – an audio recording of SPOKEN ROMAN LATIN from Pompeii. That’s just amazing!!!
I know that design motif wasn’t terribly uncommon – so can this be redone to get other audio snippets from the past!?
Rhonabwy 
Very cool, but unfortunately it looks like a hoax. Read the comments on the site for some insights.
In terms of science, the potter was holding the stick that engraved the clay. There wasn’t a horn or other pickup for the ambient air vibrations to transfer that to the stick spiralling down the clay, so the stick didn’t vibrate in response to the ambient sound and the grooves in the clay can’t bear any relation to the sounds around the potter.
Regarding the background on the report itself, consider this from the comments: ‘Quote from rideagain: “The author of the clip, Bilge Sehir (as acknowledged on the story link) acknowledges that the story was for an april fool’s edition on Belgian TV (at the top: “Poisson d’avril de journal televise”, translates to: “April fools newscast”)”‘
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Oh damn!
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Now THAT comment was made in a way that can be experienced by posterity! 🙂
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